A heritage brand has something no new brand can buy: time. Yet many houses treat that time like an archive they only open for anniversaries. I consider that wasted capital. Origin only becomes an asset when it explains a decision today.
At a fashion house with a long tradition, I led three areas with 37 people: marketing, content and production. The most important question there was rarely what the brand used to be. It was: what is the brand allowed to do today because it has existed for so long?
- A heritage brand lives on meaning, not on founding dates.
- Origin has to show in product, imagery and service, not just in the logo.
- Collaborations with young brands translate origin into the present.
- Anyone who cultivates heritage needs clear rules on what stays and what may change.
Table of contents
What makes a heritage brand
Age alone does not make a heritage brand. Urde, Greyser and Balmer describe heritage as the interplay of a proven track record, values that hold over a long time, the use of symbols and the conviction within the company that its own history matters for its identity (see here: Urde, Greyser, Balmer, Corporate brands with a heritage, Journal of Brand Management). The last point is decisive: heritage is an attitude, not a chronicle.
In practice this means: a heritage brand has to know which of its values still apply today. For a fashion house these are often quality, advice and a distinct view on fashion. These values carry further than any founding year printed on a shopping bag.
Show origin instead of telling it
The most common mistake is the flashback. Black and white images, old facades and founder portraits look dignified but say little about what a customer gets today. I prefer to use origin where it can be experienced: in the quality of the imagery, in the tone of the advice and in the choice of brands.
When we moved marketing from separate channels to a brand-led model, that was also a heritage decision. A brand with a long history must not sound different in every channel. Campaign, content and activation therefore follow one line, and that line grows out of the values the house has carried for decades.
Collaborations as translation
A heritage brand needs tension, otherwise it becomes a museum piece. Collaborations are a good way to create that tension. With more than 30 brand partnerships, including Off-White, Balmain, Stone Island and Ganni, we deliberately brought origin and the present together. The house contributed trust and curation, the partners contributed energy and new audiences.
What mattered was the selection. Not every loud brand fits a heritage brand. I assessed partners on whether they share the house’s standard of quality. More on this in the post on collaborations and capsule collections.
What stays and what may change
Every heritage brand needs a simple list: what is never negotiated and what may be new each season. For us, quality and attitude stayed fixed. Imagery, formats and partners were allowed to move. This separation protects against two dangers: standstill and arbitrariness.
My conclusion: origin is a promise you have to keep anew every day. A heritage brand that manages this does not look old, it looks reliable. And reliability is a rare asset in fashion retail.